Near-eye displays are wearable devices that form a display image in a wearer's field of view. Near-eye displays have numerous practical and leisure applications. Aerospace applications permit a pilot to see vital flight control information without taking their eye off the flight path. Public safety applications include tactical displays of maps and thermal imaging. Other application fields include video games, transportation, and telecommunications.
Since near-eye displays are wearables, improvements in power consumption and form factor are highly desirable. Conventional near-eye displays often include a micro-display and an image relay that includes lenses and/or mirrors to direct the images generated by the micro-display to the eye of a wearer of the near-eye display. These various optical components add bulk to the near-eye display. Furthermore, the optical components must be fabricated with very tight manufacturing tolerances and also be precisely aligned to maintain the fidelity of the image generated by the micro-display. The optical components must also be designed to maintain the colors of the image as the image light propagates through the image relay. Therefore, a near-eye display that reduces the bulk, power consumption, and optical fidelity requirements of existing near-eye displays is desirable.